A House For Mr Maharaj

“V. S. Naipaul makes a formidable father figure, especially for Indian novelists writing in English,” asserts Donna Bailey Nurse in The Globe And Mail. With that somewhat uninformed sentence, she goes on to give us an over-the-top review of Rabindranath Maharaj’s new novel:

“A Perfect Pledge...will establish him as a major Canadian writer and a literary figure of international stature. In addition to Maharaj's power to delight and captivate, there is the novel's bold engagement with the work of Naipaul...A Perfect Pledge shares the comically neutral tone of Naipaul's earlier novels, except that Maharaj's humour is broader, the characters more hilarious in their physical and linguistic excesses. Also, unlike Naipaul, Maharaj's mirth belies an implacable tenderness, an empathy and acceptance of human nature -- a respectfulness that precludes scorn.”